A drumhead generally includes a drum skin held in contact with a circular rim. The tension on the drum skin is adjusted to fine tune the pitch of the drum. Typically, adjusting the tension entails either tightening or loosening multiple lug bolts located on the exterior of the drum body.
It is often necessary to adjust each of the lug bolts individually, since either tightening or loosening of even a single lug bolt will affect the drum skim tension, such that the other lug bolts must also each correspondingly be adjusted as well in order to obtain a consistent sound throughout the entire drumhead. Thus, the tuning of a musical drum via conventional tensioning mechanisms is quite often time consuming.
Thus the concept of quick tuning drums is known and was introduced in the prior art to address the time consuming and sometimes cumbersome conventional methods of tuning a drum.
One example is the roto-tom. A roto-tom usually has only one drumhead held against an abbreviated length shell by a hoop, which hoop pulls the head tightly against the shell. Tension rods are spaced around the hoop, such that when the entire drum is rotated, the tension rods collectively tighten thereby uniformly pressuring the drumhead against the shell. As a result, rotating the drum in one direction tightens the drumhead and counter-rotating the drumhead decreases the head tension.
Another method of quickly changing the pitch of drums is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,218,952 (to Arbiter) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,739,448 (to Toscano) which disclose drum tensioning devices that employ gears which tighten a counter hoop which tightens the skin of the drum as the gears are rotated.
The '448 patent (to Toscano) utilizes an inverted J-shaped counterhoop that is threadably engaged with an externally threaded, outwardly facing tuning rim surface on a tuning collar that is secured to the drum shell. A pressure ring bears downwardly on a hoop that is secured to the periphery of the drum skin. Rotation of the counterhoop in one direction screws the counterhoop further onto the drum shell, thereby tightening the drum skin. Counterrotation of the counterhoop in the opposite direction loosens the drum skin.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,043,419 (to Arbiter) discloses a drum including a drum shell, a drumhead, a counter-hoop and a shell hoop. An adjustable clamp ring engages the counter-hoop and the rim of the shell hoop through correspondingly inclined portions. The clamp ring has a breach and a tightening mechanism so that when the clamp ring is tightened, the counter-hoop is forced downwards, thereby tightening the skin.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,586,665 (to Liao et al) teaches a drum membrane which is adjustable to different tensions which utilizes a tensioning ring that works in conjunction with a bolt or fastener. A follower linked to the adjusting bolt forces a pair of blocks toward and away from one another in order to adjust the tension of the skin head held by the ring.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for an improved drum tuning device which is easy and quick to use, which provides uniform tuning around the perimeter of the drumhead. The device should be easily adapted for use on any conventional drum and should not be obtrusive so that it does not interfere with the freedom of movement of the drummer during play.